Skip to main content

Discussion details

Created 16 December 2012

Scientists from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) have urged negotiators working on a tuna fish stocks management mechanism for the Western Central Pacific to agree on reference points to drive the process. The message was delivered during a two-day management workshop, held during the annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), which convened from 2-6 December 2012, in Manila, the Philippines.
SPC scientists recommend that Pacific tuna fisheries be managed using long-term objectives based on both economic outcomes, such as revenue and employment, and environmental outcomes, such as fish stock sustainability. They suggest adoption of: limit reference points, which set minimum allowable stock size or maximum allowable fishing effort; target reference points, which set a stock size or level of fishing effort that ensures optimum benefits, based on ecological, social and economic factors; and harvest control rates, setting pre-agreed actions when a target reference point is met.

[Press Release]

Source: SIDSnet